⚠️ Avoid using flashing images or emoji on posts or profiles, as they can be physically dangerous to people with certain neurological conditions. (It's okay to post animations and videos, they just need to avoid rapid flashing.)
There is an option in Mastodon for people to prevent GIFs autoplaying, but not everyone is on Mastodon. A lot of people may be seeing your post through a shared web link.
More info on this topic (including how to switch off flashing) here:
@FediTips
I can't even stand autoplay animations. I think they should be disabled by default, but I always have to dig into the settings to turn them off.
And it seems that every single website I visit wants to put a video playing in the bottom corner.
Flashing ads, looped animations, autoplay videos, and the like send my brain into a frenzy.
I don't suffer seizures or migraines from blinking and flashing content, but I do recoil from the excessive, unnecessary visual noise.
Please, I beg of you, just allow for the fact that I am reading your post or visiting your web page because something enticing brought me there.
Don't drive me away by so-called attention grabbers that stoop to the level of flashing an LED flashlight in my face or making me watch jazz hands out of the corner of my eye.